18 Best Movies Set in Venice to Watch Before Your Trip

The Venice Factor

Not every movie that features Venice is really a Venice movie. Some movies spend almost their entire running time in the city while others make Venice one memorable stop on a much larger journey. The Venice Factor is a way for you to identify when this is the case.

★★★★★ means Venice is central to most or all of the movie;
★★★☆☆ means the city gets a substantial chapter;
and ★★☆☆☆ means Venice is one memorable stop in a wider story.

Summertime (1955)

Best for: First-time visitors
Venice factor: ★★★★★

If you're going to watch just one movie before your first trip to Venice, make it Summertime. And if this really is your first visit, our realistic 2-day Venice itinerary for first-time visitors covers the major sights while still leaving time to wander.

Katharine Hepburn plays Jane Hudson, an American secretary who finally takes the trip to Venice she has dreamed about for years. That makes Summertime unusually well suited to travellers: we experience Venice through the eyes of someone seeing it for the first time.

There are famous sights, cafés, canals and romantic encounters, but also that slightly overwhelming feeling of arriving somewhere you've imagined for years and suddenly finding yourself standing in the middle of it.

The Venice of Summertime is romantic without feeling completely detached from travel itself - and Hepburn wandering through the city remains one of cinema's great advertisements for booking the ticket.

Watch this if: You want a movie that will make you excited to actually be in Venice.

Don't Look Now (1973)

Best for: Dark and atmospheric Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

If Summertime makes Venice look like a romantic dream, Don't Look Now makes it feel like the city is quietly plotting against you.

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a grieving couple living temporarily in Venice, where he is overseeing the restoration of a church. From there, things become increasingly strange.

Director Nicolas Roeg largely avoids treating Venice like a postcard. Instead, the film makes extraordinary use of quieter churches, narrow streets, canals and damp-looking corners of the city.

Those maze-like streets are considerably less sinister in daylight, but they can still be confusing - our Venice travel tips for first-time visitors cover getting around the city and some of the other things we learned the hard way.

It's especially fun to watch after you've visited Venice and experienced how quickly you can leave the crowds around St. Mark's Square and find yourself walking through almost deserted passages a few minutes later.

Watch this if: You want Venice at its eeriest.

A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Best for: Mystery fans
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Kenneth Branagh's third outing as Hercule Poirot moves the detective to post-war Venice, where a Halloween séance inside a supposedly haunted palazzo inevitably becomes considerably more complicated.

A Haunting in Venice isn't really interested in sunny postcard Venice. This is fog, masks, canals at night, old buildings and things going bump somewhere behind an extremely expensive-looking wall. (And yet, it's still very beautiful.)

The story is only loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, with Venice itself becoming one of the movie's defining features.

Watch this if: You appreciate beautiful gothic cinematography alongside a classic mystery story.

The Tourist (2010)

Best for: Glamorous Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Is The Tourist the best movie on this list?
No.

Is it one of the best movies for making Venice look absurdly glamorous?
Absolutely.

Johnny Depp plays an American tourist who meets the mysterious Elise, played by Angelina Jolie, on a train to Venice. What follows involves mistaken identities, criminals, luxury hotels, rooftop pursuits and an enormous amount of looking fabulous while travelling by boat.

The movie uses Venice exactly how you'd expect a glitzy Hollywood production to use Venice: the Grand Canal, beautiful palazzi, elegant interiors and water taxis rather than getting sweaty dragging luggage over six bridges.

That's also what makes it useful before a trip. Few movies offer such an unapologetically glossy tour of the city.

Watch this if: You want pure Venice travel fantasy and don't mind a fairly silly plot coming along for the ride.

Bread and Tulips (2000)

Best for: Seeing a more lived-in Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Bread and Tulips offers almost the opposite version of Venice from The Tourist. Think: Venice for locals.

After accidentally being left behind by her family during a bus trip, Italian housewife Rosalba decides to make her own way home - only to detour to Venice and, increasingly, build a life there.

Instead of treating the city only as a collection of landmarks, Bread and Tulips gives us somewhere people work, make friends, rent rooms and fall in love.

Watch this if: You want to see the Venice that locals experience.

Casanova (2005)

Best for: Glitzy historical Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Heath Ledger stars as the legendary Giacomo Casanova in this playful romantic comedy set in 18th-century Venice. Historical documentary this is not.

But if you're interested in a lavish, entertaining fantasy of old Venice - complete with costumes, palaces, canals and romantic intrigue - Casanova delivers.

It also makes an entertaining pairing with The Merchant of Venice. Watch Casanova for a colourful romantic fantasy of historical Venice; watch Merchant for something considerably heavier.

Watch this if: You're looking for the glamorous, fantastical Venice of storybooks.

Casino Royale (2006)

Best for: Action
Venice factor: ★★★☆☆

Venice doesn't appear until late in Casino Royale, but when Bond arrives, the city gets one of the most memorable sequences in the entire film.

Daniel Craig's first Bond movie moves through Madagascar, the Bahamas, Montenegro and Lake Como before bringing Bond and Vesper Lynd to Venice. Naturally, their romantic Venetian interlude does not remain peaceful for very long.

The finale uses canals and Venetian architecture in spectacular fashion, culminating in a sequence that anyone who's visited Venice may watch while wondering how many heritage-conservation officers just fainted.

Watch this if: You want something with decidedly more action, but also a little of the romance that Venice is known for.

The Wings of the Dove (1997)

Best for: Romantic period drama
Venice factor: ★★★★☆

Based on Henry James's novel, The Wings of the Dove stars Helena Bonham Carter as Kate, a woman whose limited finances stand between her and the man she loves.

Enter a wealthy American heiress, a morally questionable plan and Venice.

A substantial portion of the movie takes place in the city, and the production spent weeks filming there. Rather than simply using Venice as a pretty backdrop, its enclosed rooms, waterways and faded grandeur suit a story built around romance, money, secrecy and manipulation.

It may not be the first Venice movie most travellers think of, but visually it's one of the most memorable.

Watch this if: Your ideal Venice comes with corsets, yearning...and questionable decisions.

The Merchant of Venice (2004)

Best for: Shakespearean Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes lead this adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, set against the social and commercial world of 16th-century Venice.

The film explores money, law, religion, prejudice and the treatment of Venice's Jewish community, giving its historical setting considerably more weight than the usual masks-and-gondolas approach.

It's not necessarily the movie I'd choose if your primary objective is to get excited about Aperol spritzes beside a canal.

Watch this if: You want historical Venice with more Shakespeare and less escapism.

Death in Venice (1971)

Best for: Art-house cinema
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Luchino Visconti's adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella follows composer Gustav von Aschenbach as he retreats to Venice and becomes increasingly obsessed with a teenage boy staying at his hotel.

This is not the cheerful pre-holiday pick.

Death in Venice is slow, beautiful, unsettling and preoccupied with obsession, ageing, decay and mortality - themes which Visconti mirrors against the fading grandeur of Venice itself (with a significant amount of the story unfolding on the Lido).

It's undeniably one of the most famous films ever associated with the city, even if I'd recommend several others here before it for the average traveller.

Watch this if: You like your Venice beautiful, melancholy and extremely serious.

The Comfort of Strangers (1990)

Best for: Unsettling Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Apparently Venice has spent decades convincing filmmakers that romantic holidays there should go terribly wrong.

In The Comfort of Strangers, Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson play a British couple vacationing in Venice who meet an unusually intense stranger played by Christopher Walken and his wife, played by Helen Mirren.

Things do not become less intense.

The movie understands how easily Venice's beauty can become claustrophobic. The maze of streets and canals that is wonderful to wander during the day can look considerably less inviting when a psychological thriller decides you are lost in it.

Watch this if: You enjoy the idea of mixing Venice's sumptuous beauty with a menacing storyline.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Best for: Stylish Italian escapism with a dark side
Venice factor: ★★★☆☆

Most of The Talented Mr. Ripley is not set in Venice.

It's an Italy movie first, moving through seaside towns and Rome before Venice becomes important later in the story. But Anthony Minghella's film is so good at using Italy - and its Venice section is so memorable - that it deserves a place here.

Matt Damon stars as Tom Ripley, whose talent for lying, impersonation and social climbing takes him increasingly far beyond the relatively simple assignment that first brings him to Italy.

By the time the story reaches Venice, the city's elegant palazzi and wintery atmosphere feel perfectly suited to Tom's increasingly elaborate invented life.

Watch this if: You want one excellent movie that will make you want to travel around Italy, not just Venice. And if that's exactly the kind of movie you're looking for, we've got more of our best travel movies to inspire your next trip.

Dangerous Beauty (1998)

Best for: Renaissance Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★★

Dangerous Beauty tells the story of Veronica Franco, the celebrated poet and courtesan who lived in 16th-century Venice. The movie follows Veronica as she enters the city's world of wealthy and educated courtesans after being unable to marry the aristocratic man she loves.

For travellers, it offers another visually rich version of historical Venice that feels distinct from both the playful Casanova and the more severe Merchant of Venice.

Watch this if: You want Renaissance Venice with romance, politics and scandal.

Senso (1954)

Best for: 19th-century Venice
Venice factor: ★★★★☆

Another Luchino Visconti movie, Senso opens spectacularly inside Venice's Teatro La Fenice during the final period of Austrian rule over the city.

What begins amid political protest develops into a doomed affair between an Italian countess and an Austrian officer. Compared with the Hollywood historical romances elsewhere on this list, Senso is considerably more rooted in Italian history, particularly the Risorgimento and the struggle against Austrian control.

Watch this if: You're interested in Italian history as much as Venetian scenery.

Top Hat (1935)

Best for: Classic Hollywood Venice
Venice factor: ★★★☆☆

Top Hat earns a place on this list for a slightly different reason.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers eventually make their way to Venice, complete with canals, bridges, piazzas and one of the movie's most famous dance sequences.

There's just one small issue.

It isn't Venice.

The movie's gloriously artificial version of the city was created on enormous Hollywood sets, giving us less geographical accuracy and more 1930s Art Deco fever dream. Hence Top Hat is a movie set in Venice rather than a movie filmed there. (And honestly, its imaginary Venice is rather wonderful.)

Watch this if: You want Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing through storybook Venice.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Best for: Superhero fans and families
Venice factor: ★★☆☆☆

Peter Parker's school trip through Europe begins in Venice, which should theoretically mean museums, sightseeing and awkward teenage romance. But poor Peter just can't catch a break...

Venice is only the first stop in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but the movie gives the city a substantial early sequence, using locations around the canals, Rialto, Campo Santa Maria Formosa and St. Mark's.

This is one of the easiest movies on this list to watch with younger travellers before a family trip.

Watch this if: Your preferred Venice itinerary includes saving a bell tower from elemental destruction - or you're planning a trip with the kids.

Inferno (2016)

Best for: Landmark-heavy thrillers
Venice factor: ★★☆☆☆

Tom Hanks returns as Robert Langdon in Inferno, another frantic race through European art, history and architecture based on Dan Brown's novel. Most of the movie belongs to Florence and Istanbul, but the trail also brings Langdon to Venice and, importantly, St. Mark's Basilica.

That gives Inferno less Venetian screen time than most films higher on this list, but it uses one of the city's biggest landmarks as an actual part of the mystery rather than simply sticking it behind the characters for atmosphere.

It also makes a good addition to a pre-Italy movie marathon because the story moves through several major destinations.

Watch this if: You enjoy watching Tom Hanks solve historical puzzles at a pace museums generally discourage.

Only You (1994)

Best for: Romantic Italian escapism
Venice factor: ★★☆☆☆

Marisa Tomei impulsively travels to Italy in search of a man she believes she is destined to marry, beginning a romantic journey through several of the country's most beautiful destinations.

Venice is only one part of Only You, alongside Rome, Tuscany and Positano. The Venice portion includes the magnificent Hotel Danieli, and the entire film has the sort of sun-soaked romantic-travel energy that can make sensible adults start checking flight prices before the credits finish.

Watch this if: You want to watch Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. find love in Italy.

Movies Set in Venice vs. Movies Filmed in Venice

Movies set in Venice and movies filmed in Venice are not quite the same thing. A movie can be set in Venice without ever filming there. Top Hat is the perfect example of this - its Venice scenes were actually created on massive studio sets.

That goes for movies filmed in Venice too - sometimes, multiple locations are combined into one spectacular one, or an entire grand palazzo is digitally added to the Grand Canal (looking at you, Casino Royale!).

Likewise, a film can shoot memorable scenes in Venice without the city being the primary setting of the story. That's why I tried not to turn this into a generic list of everything ever filmed beside the Grand Canal.

If you want to stand in the exact places where famous Venice movie scenes were shot, read my guide to Venice filming locations you can actually visit.

More Movies With Memorable Venice Scenes

A few more films are worth adding to your watchlist, even though Venice isn't central enough to their stories for me to put them in the main 18. Think of these as honourable mentions.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Indy comes to Venice while searching for clues that could lead him to both the Holy Grail and his missing father. The Venetian sequence includes one particularly memorable boat chase. It's great fun, but Venice is ultimately one chapter in a much larger globe-trotting adventure.

The Italian Job (2003)

The remake opens with an elaborate gold robbery in Venice before heading elsewhere for most of the story. The Venice section is terrific - speedboats flying through canals tend to help - but calling The Italian Job a movie set in Venice would be stretching things.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023)

Ethan Hunt's journey eventually brings him to Venice for one of the movie's darker and more important sequences. Again, this is a major Venice set-piece inside a much larger international action movie rather than a Venice film.

Moonraker (1979)

James Bond comes to Venice while investigating Hugo Drax and naturally discovers rather more than the average tourist. Venice gets several memorable scenes, but it is one of many locations in one of Bond's most enthusiastically globe-hopping adventures.

Chasing Liberty (2004)

Mandy Moore plays the daughter of the US president, who escapes her Secret Service detail and travels across Europe with a young British man. Venice forms part of their European adventure and was genuinely used as a filming location, but the movie's identity is much more teen fantasy "European road trip" than "Venice movie."

Italian for Beginners (2000)

This charming Danish romantic comedy follows a group of lonely adults who meet through an Italian evening class. For most of the running time, Denmark is very much the setting. Eventually, however, their growing connection leads them to Venice.

It's a lovely inclusion for an expanded Venice watchlist, but putting it among movies actually centred on the city would oversell how much Venice you'll get.

Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023)

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen take their book club to Italy, travelling through Rome, Venice and Tuscany.

It's another movie I'd save primarily for a list of movies to watch before visiting Italy, rather than positioning it as a Venice film.

Visit the Venice You Saw on Screen

Watching these movies before your trip is fun.

Recognizing the places once you're actually walking through Venice is even better. During our own trip, we tracked down movie locations around the city and found that some of them are ridiculously easy to walk past without knowing what happened there on screen.

We've collected 29 filming locations from 15 movies in our Venice on Screen guide, designed to help you find them while you're actually in Venice.

Or, if you want to start with the free version, see our 12 Venice movie filming locations you can visit.

Which Venice Movie Should You Watch First?

If you've never seen any of these and you're visiting Venice soon, my vote goes to Summertime. It's a classic, and few movies capture the particular excitement of arriving in Venice as a traveller quite as well.

After that, choose based on the Venice you want:

• The Tourist, if you want impossibly glamorous Venice.

• Don't Look Now, if you want narrow canals and creeping dread.
• A Haunting in Venice, if you want a beautiful gothic murder mystery.
• Casanova, if you want masks and historical spectacle.
• Bread and Tulips, if you'd rather see Venice as somewhere people actually live.
• Casino Royale, if all of that sounds nice but you'd also quite like someone to blow something up.

And if you have a different favorite, let us know in the comments below. We love movies and are always looking to try something new.

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